Page 56 of Chosen Road

“Not me, Yiayia,” Ruby answered, the goody two shoes.

Amber quietly admitted, “I don’t. But I’m not opposed.”

So, safe to assume she liked tattoos. What would she think of mine? I wondered if I’d ever get an opportunity to show her.

“Humph.” Yiayia sat back in her chair. “Maybe Yiayia gonna get one. I gonna get a tomato on my golo.”

Amber and Ruby looked at each other and howled. Her laughter rocked her sideways in her chair and she bumped into me, then lifted her chin to smile at me. If I wasn’t already hers, heart and soul, that smile would have done it.

“What?” Alex yelled. “What did she say?”

Amber shook her head, and I shrugged, smiling. The word she used was not one I was familiar with.

Vander turned to Alex with a grin. “She said she’s going to get a tomato tattooed on her ass.”

Alex’s mouth dropped open. He looked at Jace who wore a matching expression, and they fell across the table towards each other, laughing.

Laughter could never be overrated or overvalued. I’d missed this crazy group, and I wondered, again, at what faulty logic ever possessed me to take that final step to throw it all away.

At home that night, I took off my shirt and stood while Alex quietly studied my ink. It was a wonder to me that he hadn’t noticed. I was sure I had been shirtless here and there at least. He lifted his hand and touched Amber’s name with his index finger.

“You got this after Momma and I left,” he mused.

“I got all of them after Momma got the condo,” I answered.

“Me,” he noted softly, his finger brushing over another tattoo. “Momma, Yiayia.” He named the person represented by each tattoo. “Is this your parents?”

“Yes, buddy.”

“And this one? Is it new?”

“It is.”

“It’s not all the way healed yet.” He ran his finger over the design. “What does it mean?”

“Hope.”

Chapter 18: Family

Amber

Okay. I could do this.

I’d barely seen Gus over the past week, but he made his presence known constantly. He sent food to my office the night I worked late, planted shrubs in the tiny barren patch of garden underneath my front window, picked up Alex every day after school, took my yiayia to her appointment, and I was all too well aware that he would be at Yiayia’s for dinner today.

And he was late.

Did he change his mind? Could he finally acknowledge that I wasn’t worth the effort? I knew he wasn’t with anyone else, he had Alex with him.

I stood staring out the window, my back stiff, feeling all kinds of off-balance, when Ruby and Vander arrived. I hoped they’d been able to work out the mess between them. Their story was much more complicated than ours. Maybe if they could do it, Gus and I could find our way back to each other.

I assessed them as they came into the family room and what I saw made me smile.

George, Vander’s son from his first marriage, and Jace lumbered through, hands in pockets, identical half smiles on their lips. They said hello and Jace gave me a hug before they headed upstairs to Jace’s room to play video games and wait for Alex.

I looked at my sweet sister. “All good, Rubes?”

She bent and gave me a smacking kiss on my cheek. “All good, Ames.”

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